Title: When She Cries

Book: III
Chapter: Six
Chapter Title: Colors In Life

Rating: R.
 Disclaimer: Aye, captain. I hold no deeds to Gilmore Girls. And I don’t own John Mayer’s Everything Is Not Broken.

 

 

*

 

That nature rains on flames we made/
Should tell you everything is not broken/
No everything is not broken.

 

 

            Did sticking one’s head between ones knees cure nausea, when one was standing? Lola fervently hoped so because she needed something to prevent her from feeling like she was going to throw up or actually throwing up. But she feared she had used up all her miracles on being able to keep it down the two hour long ride over there. She rang the doorbell again.

 

            Her grandmother opened the door and blinked. “Wow, Lo. Green is so not fitting with your complexion.”

 

            Lola gulped. Damn. “I think I’m going to be sick.” Another hard gulp. “Like, now.”

 

            “Uh, yeah. I can see that.” Lorelai stepped back and allowed Lola a quick entrance and followed her into the downstairs bathroom.

 

            She was down on her knees the second she got into the room, and then empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet. When she was done, Lorelai reached over, flushed the toilet and handed Lola a small towel.

 

            “So what was that about?” Lorelai asked her, as Lola slid into a sitting position.

 

            “You want me to scientifically define what regurgitation is about?” She was hedging, but then again how did one tell a relative that you were pretty much following in their footsteps?

 

            Lorelai resisted the urge to sigh. That was Lola for you. “No, I’d rather have the explanation for what personally caused your…regurgitation.”

 

            “Oh,” Lola’s gaze shifted down to the floor. “Can I have a glass of water?”

 

            “Yeah, I can get you one in the kitchen.”

 

            “Does it involve moving?” She asked. “I don’t want to do that.”

 

            This time Lorelai did sigh. It was probably best to temporize this conversation. She had a very bad feeling about the outcome. “I’ll be right back then.”

 

            Lola rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Her throat burned, her eyes stung and she was tired. So very tired. And she wasn’t her self. Her normal self didn’t feel this…out of control. It was frightening to think she had landed herself in a situation that she couldn’t talk, couldn’t flirt and couldn’t seduce her way out of. She couldn’t do anything to change this. It was irrevocable.

 

            When her Grams returned, Lola took the cup from her and drank slowly from it as Lorelai sat down across from her on the floor.

 

            “Well I’m ready.”

 

            She should have stayed hidden for at least the next ten months. By then she’d have given birth and gotten her figure back. Who’d know the difference? But she had to get this out. Lorelai Emily DuGrey was not craven.

 

            Okay, so maybe she was just a tiny bit. “So I received my first marriage proposal.”

 

            Expect the unexpected; Lorelai had forgotten the cardinal rule when dealing with her granddaughter. “Oh? Was it romantic? Did he go down on one knee? Roses were involved, I assume. Oh, and most important question- what prompted this proposal?”

 

            “Well, um, the vomiting may have something to do with it,” Lola took a sip of the water. She had blurted it out to Kenzie- why couldn’t she have done the same with her Grams? “And the pregnancy.”

            Lorelai had been expecting it, but still hearing the words out loud still kicked the breath out of her. “Pregnancy? Whose pregnancy, exactly? Do you mean Liz Morgan’s on General Hospital or something a little more along the lines of reality?”

 

            Leave it up to her grandmother to make her say the words out loud. “That’d be…my…pregnancy.” There, the words were out. Another irrevocable move in her life. Lovely.

 

            “Wow. Okay.” Lorelai felt the sudden urge to stand up and pace. But that’d be kind of hard to do in the cramped bathroom. “The father is…”

 

            “No one you know,” Lola offered.

 

            Well, duh. “I mean, is he someone that goes to school with you? Someone you’ve been dating and haven’t told us about? A clown that you met in Times Square?”

 

            “No, no and no.” She sank down a little more.

 

            It was a little too late for Lola to be showing shame now. “Well that eliminates three candidates. So should we move on to bankers and billionaires now?”

 

            It was a pity that if she sank anymore, she’d be lying down. And her stomach wasn’t too keen on moving at present. “Um…”

 

            Lorelai had been kidding with that comment, but it looked like she was about to learn something she really didn’t want to know. “How old is he?”

 

            This was bound to be found out sooner or later. The society pages would love it too much for it not to be written about. A lot. "Around thirty two, maybe?"

 

            Lorelai choked on air. She had known she had gotten far too lucky with Rory. "Around? As in the same way twenty is around thirty-two? Or in the way that thirty-two is around thirty-two?"

           

            “The latter.”

 

            For once in her life, she truly had no words to say. Lorelai stood up. She needed to stop and think of this rationally. Before she turned into her mother.

 

            “So this proposal from the,” she stopped her self from choking again. “Thirty two year old. Your answer happened to be…?” Lorelai wasn’t quite sure if she wanted it to be a yes or a no.

 

            The feeling of disappointing someone. It was something Lola was quite familiar with. She had disappointed her mother enough, as well as other people in her life like Dallie. But this. This was so much bigger. “A no. I said no, Grams.”

 

            Yes, that feeling was relief. That was probably a bad thing, though. This moment was too dark, too heavy for her to deal with. And there was just going to be more and more in the coming months. “So it looks like you have Gilmore blood in you, after all.”

 

            Lola coughed, since she couldn’t get a laugh out right now. It was the closest she was going to get.

 

*

 

            After she had stopped vomiting, Lola had pulled on one of her grandmother’s oversized pajamas. It may have been oversized on Lorelai, but it fit just right on Lola, since she was a few inches taller than her grandmother. Then she had crawled into her mother’s old bed, and turned the television on, and stared at it numbly for the past hour.

 

            She didn’t bother looking up when the door opened. Only one person it could be after all, unless her Grams had been hiding Grandpapa Chris in her bedroom. And, if Lola really thought about it, that wouldn’t be very surprising.

 

            The bed sagged under the weight of Lorelai sitting down on the edge of the bed, and she smoothed back Lola’s hair absently, her eyes fixated on the screen.

 

            “Melrose Place. Why is this not surprising me?”

 

            “Because Kyle’s hot?” Lola offered, she snuck a look at her grandmother.

 

            “Ooooh, which one’s he?”

 

            “I’d say he’s the one on screen that’s not Heather Locklear.”

 

            Lorelai swatted her granddaughter on the shoulder, happy that they could momentarily forget everything happening around- and in- them. “Smart ass.”

 

            Lola just murmured an agreement and closed her eyes as a commercial break began. Lorelai sighed, looked around helplessly, kissed her granddaughter on the cheek and stood up. She had never felt so old before. Man, did it suck.

 

 

 

To Be Continued…